Local, state Democrats go rogue

Leaders in Obama’s party are starting to stir up trouble of their own. | Getty

But the defiance of federal power on immigration and drug law goes a step further, crossing the line from implementing policies that the federal government has not endorsed to rejecting enforcement of standing federal policy.

In some respects, it follows more in the tradition of ultra-liberal states that have provocatively challenged the limits of federal regulation on social policy, as Oregon did with a 1997 assisted suicide law that was upheld by the Supreme Court. In the same vein, several municipalities, led by San Francisco, challenged the feds by issuing legally unsanctioned same-sex marriage licenses during Republican President George W. Bush’s administration.

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If many Democrats applaud local leaders for racing ahead of their federal counterparts, even some champions of rebellious state policy say it’s only a poor substitute for national action.

“It’s certainly a sign of system failure,” said California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor who is leading a pot decriminalization referendum push in the Golden State. “Unless D.C. gets its act together, we’re going to see more of this patchwork, localized reform. One can applaud that. One should. But on another level, is that the best approach to governance?”

Newsom, who became a national political figure by issuing legally unsanctioned gay marriage licenses, said local improvisation can at least stand a chance of shifting public opinion.

“Obviously, gay marriage was a much hotter issue a few years back. There wasn’t a statewide Democrat supporting decriminalizing marijuana,” he said. During the 2010 election, he recalled, now-Gov. Jerry Brown was “nowhere on driver’s licenses [for undocumented immigrants] and the DREAM Act [for undocumented students] and now he’s touting driver’s licenses and the DREAM Act. … It’s been a monumental shift.”

So far, the pushback from Washington has been negligible: The Justice Department has signaled it will not seek to wield federal drug law to halt state-level pot decriminalization. O’Malley said he experienced no pushback from ICE or other federal agencies on the announcement of pared-back cooperation with the immigration program dubbed Secure Communities.

All of that could conceivably change under a more socially conservative president, with an executive branch less tolerant of such local improvisation.

To some liberal policy advocates, the current president has set an example for their defiant actions: The White House has picked spots to scale back its support for more restrictive federal laws, most famously with its deferred deportation program for certain undocumented immigrants, as well as with the 2011 decision to stop defending the now-defunct Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Even under Obama, progressive activists say they recognize the dangers of courting friction with federal power. Jean Robinson, the Seattle construction executive who chaired the state’s pot decriminalization referendum campaign, said that was “always a risk” — but one the campaign was willing to take.

“We didn’t know exactly, and we still don’t know at this point, exactly what the feds will do. But I didn’t have any reservations,” Robinson said. “It’s very difficult to get anything done on the national level, as President Obama has seen all these years, and this was something that couldn’t wait.”

On his immigration shift, O’Malley said the only reaction he’d gotten from federal agencies was an assurance that they’re “looking at it and studying” the current enforcement system — not, he said, a particularly satisfying response.

“After about a year and a half of that, one’s patience runs out. You have a responsibility to make decisions for the people that you serve in your time of service,” O’Malley said. “This is not a time to wait on the federal government to figure things out.”